


Promise in the Voyage

by Derry Rain (smakibbfb)



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M, Merman Tozer, Really quite canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smakibbfb/pseuds/Derry%20Rain
Summary: In which Edward Little strikes up a relationship with Solomon Tozer, a Mer Marine.Quite canon-compliant up until episode 9, tbh.
Relationships: Edward Little/Solomon Tozer
Comments: 12
Kudos: 21
Collections: Lieutenant and Sergeant Gift Exchange





	Promise in the Voyage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mothicalcreatures](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothicalcreatures/gifts).



> “But I must be paid also,” said the witch, “and it is not a trifle that I ask. You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince with it also, but this voice you must give to me; the best thing you possess will I have for the price of my draught. My own blood must be mixed with it, that it may be as sharp as a two-edged sword.”

_The Little Mermaid_ , Hans Christian Andersen

It has taken some time for Edward to get used to walking the deck swaddled as he is in these thick layers and he considers it a rather personal affront that as bulky as he is, he can still feel the piercing fingers of the cold over every inch of his skin. His whiskers bristle with the frost and he hunkers down into his greatcoat as far as he can, trying not to appear to anyone that may be watching to be shrinking away from the cold. 

There aren’t many souls who might be, he concedes to himself, though he keeps his back straight, taut with the authority he knows out here he must guard carefully. He knows the rhythms of Terror now as much as he knew his home as a child, it is second nature to him now to keep an unobtrusive eye on the men as he goes about his duties. 

Tonight, however, it is not his duties that he is concerned with; he glances around the deck until he spies the colours he has been looking for. Tozer is leaning, almost nonchalantly, against a crate, and nods when Edward catches his eye. Unusually, he seems to be alone, and though he glances around cautiously, certain that one of the other marines must be close by, it is more than a little relief to Edward that none are anywhere to be seen. He does not hurry, as he picks his way across the deck to Tozer, though he wishes to.

Tozer straightens, a picture of languid duty, at his approach, his lips already quirked into a strange, small smile. 

“Evening, Lieutenant Little,” he says cheerfully, his tone just the other side of something spiked, insolent, not enough to reprimand, even if Edward were of a mind to, “Is there something I can do for you?” His voice lowers. “Something you need, sir?”

Grateful for the scarf that’s wrapped high around his neck, Edward flushes a little and pushes away the memory that threatens to surface; of hot skin, bitten cries and the weight of a body full above him. “I was hoping you could indulge me,” he begins, cringing immediately at Tozer’s wide grin. “In a question,” he adds, hurriedly.

“I’m all yours,” Tozer tells him, gesturing beneficently with a wide open arm. Edward takes a deep breath, rubs a mittened hand over his eyes.

“Are you going to be all right?” he asks.

Tozer blinks at that, tilts his head, steps back from where he has drawn a little too close. The space between them feels like a gulf, suddenly. His eyes rake over Edward’s face. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks. There’s something dangerous behind his words, but Edward steels himself against it. This is your duty, he reminds himself. 

“If we winter here. With your…” he pauses, searching for the right word, “condition?”

Tozer’s grin flickers into something much more pointed as soon as the word leaves Edward’s lips and he knows he has said the wrong thing. His teeth, Edward notes, are sharper than they should be and as he watches the marine, he can see his eyes darken, pupils melting into doll-black eyes. His breath catches in his throat. 

He had seen Tozer’s record, of course, had noted the curled label “ _Mer_ ” affixed to his details, but there were so few of the water people now, that it still came as something of a thrill to see the shift in person. In his life, Edward had met no more than two others, and those brothers at that, whose quicksilver scales sparkled in the candlelight as they danced, drawing the focus of every eye in the room. Later, he had shared a smoke with one of them and noted with surprise that his skin had reverted to its ordinary human texture. The young man had obliged his querying touch with an amused boredom, shivering scales beneath first Edward’s fingers, then his lips, and swallowed down every one of Edward’s apologies at his crass curiosity with the gentle acceptance of a cool mountain brook on a summer day.

It had been nothing like that with Tozer. Their first meeting had been hard and fast, a relentless pace of need and want and lust that had left Edward panting, full dashed against the rocks, and craving, clamouring for more. 

“I’m not a condition, Lieutenant,” Tozer says, “no more than you are.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Wouldn’t have come out here if getting caught was going to do me harm. You think me that stupid?”

“No. No, of course not.”

“Good.” Tozer’s eyes begin their fade back to hazel, but the same ocean-black coldness remains present. “Sir,” he adds, after a pause that seems to Edward as if it drags on for hours. “Now we’ve cleared that up, is there anything else I can do for you?”

It’s a dismissal in as much as their ranks will allow, but Edward doesn’t move. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. This isn’t what he had wanted to say, or at least, it isn’t how he wanted to say it. His fists clench uselessly in his damp-stiffened mittens. He sighs, heavily.

“I’m sorry,” he tries. Tozer’s eyebrow is raised in a skeptic curve, and Edward is beginning to feel like he’s wearing too many layers. “I was only… I didn’t mean anything by it, I wanted to make sure you were all right, of course you would have thought of it, I just wanted you… to know I - we - had also… thought… of it.” 

Shut up Ned, he thinks, miserably. He’s not sure he’s even relieved when Tozer chooses to relent and take pity on him.

“S’alright,” Tozer says, “I’ll let it pass.” He leans his elbows on the side of the ship and looks Edward up and down. “I suppose you’ve not seen many of my kind, then?”

Edward shakes his head. Silver flickers somewhere in the back of his memory.

“I don’t need the water,” Tozer says, “it’s not fun for me to be out of it too long, but it’s not a problem. There, here,” he shrugs, “I breathe all the same.”

“So you could swim, now, here if you chose? Under the ice?”

Tozer snorts. “Fuck no. No more than you could. I’d freeze my tail off.” His teeth seem to glitter in the low light. “You get me to the Sandwich Islands, then I’ll show you something.”

“Perhaps I should hold you to that,” Edward replies. 

***

> “the thing I came for:
> 
> the wreck and not the story of the wreck
> 
> the thing itself and not the myth
> 
> the drowned face always staring
> 
> toward the sun
> 
> the evidence of damage
> 
> worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
> 
> the ribs of the disaster
> 
> curving their assertion
> 
> among the tentative haunters”

_Diving into the Wreck_ , Adrienne Rich

Edward groans at the scrape of Tozer’s scales against his skin as the sergeant rocks back on his heels, his webbed hands running patterns down Edward’s legs. 

“Hush now, lieutenant,” Tozer chides, slicking his fingers from a small pot he seems to have produced out of nowhere, before placing it back on the shelf, with movements so unhurried that they cause Edward to growl in the back of his throat. Tozer merely laughs and shifts his position so that Edward is spread apart, open to him now, thighs grazing against his sharks-skin. 

Naked as they both are, Edward can see the mottled pattern of stripes patterning over Tozer’s skin, can feel the ridges of fins push against his grasping, needy hands. Though he hasn’t transformed fully, never transforms fully, there is more of the creature in these moments than Tozer ever lets show outside this private space. Every ripple of a change sends a thrill of ice-warmth straight through every part of Edward, an intimacy of revelation.

Tozer leans forward, pins Edward’s wrists together with one, strong hand, seemingly unthinking of how his razor-like nails are scoring red trails across Edward’s skin. The pain of it is deliciously raw; if Edward knows it is a lie, knows that Tozer is full aware of the dangers of his teeth and claws, he chooses in the moment to forget it, to surrender to the scratches as he relishes the press of blunted human fingers into him. Above him, Tozer murmurs something in a deep, guttural language Edward feels rather than understands, as he thrusts his fingers forwards, backwards, deep and strong, movements Edward answers with a keen of want. Tozer pauses for a moment at the sound, making Edward whimper with the need.

“My pretty bird,” Tozer mumbles, “pretty, pretty bird.” He leans down to kiss Edward as he starts to move again and Edward can taste a storm on the tongue that presses urgently into his mouth.

“Quiet,” Tozer says against his lips, when they break apart. Edward can feel the head of his cock slowly pressing against his entrance and it takes every last amount of self-control he has to stay still, to let Tozer take this at his own pace. This thing between them, that’s been going on between them, it feels fragile, somehow, like they are both standing somewhere on the edge of a cliff, staring down at the black below. He does not know for how much longer he will be able to keep his footing. 

Something must show in his face, for Tozer drives into him then, hard and deep, causing his breath to stutter in a staccato gasp. His pace is strong, brutal, perfect, and Edward closes his eyes as he lets the sensation wash over him. His hand splays over Tozer’s chest, fingers seeking the rough, smooth, rough, sand and sea and salt texture. Almost incongruous, Tozer’s own hand covers his own, cradles his fingers with a gentle touch, and lifts them to his lips.

“I’ve got you, Edward,” Tozer says into the palm of his hand. He licks a warm stripe down Edward’s palm, across the web of his own fingers, and guides their joined hands down, wrapping them both around Edward’s cock. There is a rhythm Tozer is searching for, Edward realises, as he pumps their hands together in time with his thrusts; he can hear the sound of waves against rock, the howl of wind through timber, the crash of distant thunder.

He comes with a cry he cannot quite suppress, Tozer sinks above him a few moments later. Sticky, hot, laughing, Edward watches as the stripes fade from Tozer’s skin, follows them with a brush of his knuckles. 

He isn’t sure what makes him do it, this time. Every other time they have done this, whatever this is, he has simply stayed, watched Tozer dress, and slip away like a dark shadow in the dusk. This time, though, this time, just this time, when Tozer moves to get up, Edward reaches out and catches him again, fingers loose, but closed, around his smoothed wrist. 

“Stay,” he says, “just for a few minutes.” He’s aware of the pleading tone of his voice, how needy he must sound, but in his current, bonelessly satisfied state, he doesn’t much care. He knows how to be alone, has spent years perfecting the art, but right now, the loneliness is threatening to crush the breath from his lungs. He is not too proud, he thinks perhaps, to beg.

Tozer looks down at him, expressionless, black-eyed still. There’s a glimmer of something behind the dark, Edward notices and does not know why he has never seen it before. His skin prickles with the gleam.

“Let me clean us up at least.” A smile, tiny, and for once, wholly uncertain on Tozer’s broad face. Edward feels a bubble of victory, somewhere deep in the depths of himself. He leans his face up to meet the kiss that is pressed against his forehead. “Keep your feathers nice.”

Tozer’s touch is gentle as he wipes a cloth over the pair of them, and gentler still when he slips under the covers and allows Edward’s arms to sling around him, pulling him close. His neck is soft where Edward presses his nose just beyond the curve of his beard. Somewhere beneath the blankets, Tozer’s ankle wraps around Edward’s own, a possessive curl of safe and protection. 

“You could show me all of you,” Edward mumbles, into the embrace, his head already growing heavy with sleep. Beneath his arms Tozer stiffens.

“You don’t have to,” Edward clarifies. He stretches out further until he is all but resting on Tozer’s chest, sighing as Tozer starts to rub gentle circles around the base of his hairline. “But you can trust me, if you wanted to.”

There is no reply from the marine, Edward isn’t sure if he expected one anyway. He closes his eyes, and pretends to sleep as Tozer steals himself away.

****

> “Tell me about a complicated man.
> 
> Muse tell me how he wandered and was lost
> 
> when he had wrecked the holy city of Troy
> 
> and where he went, and who he met, the pain
> 
> he suffered on the sea, and how he worked 
> 
> to save his life and bring his men back home.”

_The Odyssey_ , Homer (trans. Emily Wilson)

Once they leave the ship, even when the Captain’s group reaches Edward’s camp, they are never alone. Edward finds that he misses the touch, the smell, the taste of Tozer as much as anything he has left behind in England. It is not an unfamiliar feeling to him, to be so close to something he wants and unable to grasp it, but the need is an uncomfortable ball in the pit of his stomach nonetheless. They nod at each other as they pass by each other, sometimes even share a smile, or a word, but there is no chance now for anything more. There’s something different too, something tense and alien in Tozer; he is brittle in a way that makes bile rise at the back of Edward’s throat, even though he is not sure why.

He is tired. He is always tired these days, always tired, and hungry, and sore. He tastes blood in his mouth and tries not to think about where it comes from. It is easier to turn his mind away from himself, he finds, if he focuses on the men instead. He can sense something uneasy in the patterns they make, but when he pushes, he finds nothing but sullen stares and watchful eyes, and he isn’t sure how long this can last. Still, he presses on, for the Captain’s sake, and for his, and for all the souls under his command.

He isn’t sure what it is that makes him chase after Tozer when the marine leaves camp one day, disappearing during some free hour beyond a small outcropping of rock. It had been only the insouciant jut of Private Pilkington’s chin that had given Edward any clue as to where he had headed, and with just a quick word to Irving, he had found himself, stones pressing through the weakened soles of his boots, trudging after the man.

“Afternoon, lieutenant,” Tozer greets, seemingly unsurprised by his appearance. A plume of smoke billows from his lips and he holds out the cigarette towards him. “Fancy it? Might be the last one you ever have.”

Edward shakes his head and Tozer shrugs, far too casually to mean it. His face is turned upwards to the sky, and for the first time, Edward can see dark circles around his eyes, and the tightness of his skin across his cheek. Red, peeling; he reaches out but stills as Tozer flinches away.

“Sorry,” he says. Tozer snorts.

“No, it’s not-” He pauses, takes another drag on the cigarette. “It’s been a while. How have you been?”

The question floats on the smoke between them, spoken as lightly and easily as if they had met each other at some society dinner. Edward glances behind them; though they are not so far from the camp as to be unreachable, there is shelter here. Tozer has picked his sanctuary well. He steps closer.

“Fucking miserable, if you must know, Sol,” he says and grins triumphantly as Tozer barks a surprised laugh back, so hard that he nearly chokes on the smoke he inhales. Edward thumps him lightly and Tozer just laughs harder and falls against him. The rush of touch makes Edward almost dizzy and he wraps his arms around Tozer tight, until he stops his shaking. “Missed you.”

Tozer makes no move to move away. “Yeah. You too.” He crushes the cigarette behind him. “It’s been a while.” His breath tickles Edward’s neck as he pushes them both backwards, back, back until Edward is caught against the sunlit rock. His hands are wrapped firmly around Edward’s waist, he can feel the strength of them, even through his coat.

“Can I ask you a question?” Tozer asks. His face fills Edward’s vision, the sun behind him throwing every contour into shadow. “Do you believe in him? The captain?” Tozer shakes his head. “No, that’s... I mean, do you think he believes in you? Truly believes in you?” 

It’s only the urgency in Tozer’s voice that makes Edward hesitate; an uncertain, frightened undercurrent swirling through the words. He can hear a fast, rushing sound, and realises that they are so close, he can hear the beat of Tozer’s heart.

“I believe he does, yes,” Edward answers. He knows it is the wrong thing to say as soon as the words leave his lips. Dark shapes shiver across Tozer’s skin, just out of sight whenever Edward tries to focus on them, but he smiles anyway.

“That’s good then,” Tozer tells him, “maybe that’ll keep us alive.” He presses dry lips against Edward’s own, the first kiss they have shared in a long time. It’s different this time, chaste, perhaps, or conciliatory. 

“You want to see something?” Tozer says against his mouth. Edward doesn’t have the chance to reply before Tozer steps back and begins to shuck clothing to the floor. A worried glance back towards camp has him grinning again. “Relax, it's too bloody cold to ravish you out here in the open. But watch, I won't be able to do this for long.”

Clothing pools on the floor as Tozer takes first one step, then two, moving towards the warmest spot he can find. Edward cannot take his eyes off him as he bends, traces the curves of his muscles that have not yet wasted away. Tozer’s back, his legs are covered in scars, and how he has missed them until now, he does not know. Words bubble in his throat, but anything he might say is caught, as a flush spreads from Tozer's shoulders, through his hands, his neck, his back, legs… no, not his legs. Tozer shifts, bracing himself on his elbows as he stares up at Edward, the mottled dark-grey scales he has so long admired tracing low, across a thick, long split tail. Though the harsh, broad land around them is no suitable backdrop to what he is seeing, Edward’s mouth is dry. There is no conscious thought that pulls him from where he stands, to kneel down next to Tozer, to run his hands fully down the length of his body, and press fervent kisses in their wake. Distantly, he can hear Tozer laugh a little, and it sounds like a sob.

“Ned, whatever happens, for either of us,” Tozer says, “We’ve just got to do the best for our boys, don’t we?”

“That’s all any of us are trying to do,” Edward looks up, still kneeling at Tozer’s side. The marine’s hands reach to cup his face, thumbs stroking so softly, ever so softly, over the skin under his eyes. 

“You take care of yourself, Edward Little,” Tozer says. “Even when I’m not there.”

“Sol-”

Tozer leans down to kiss him, and as his teeth press pinpricks to Edward’s lips, as he tastes the salt that he cannot tell comes from blood or tears, he knows that he is done for.

****

> “Now the race to which I belong have no other means of obtaining a soul than by forming with an individual of your own the most intimate union of love… And should you decide to cast me off, then do it now, and return alone to the shore."

_Undine_ , Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

Edward finds Tozer again when the fog clears and the bodies are being counted. His head still throbs from the blow he had taken earlier, but his arm is steady as he raises the rifle to his shoulder. Tozer is crouched low to the floor, arms wrapped tightly around his knees as he rocks, as if buffeted by some imaginary current.

“I should rather hang, Ned,” Tozer says, without looking at him. 

His thick fingers worry at a thread on his cuff, and he does not move as Edward draws near. He is staring out, out at nothing, out at something perhaps that Edward cannot see. His tongue wets against chapped lips. Edward lowers his rifle.

“Rather hang than what?” he asks, stepping closer. Tozer doesn’t shift at his approach and Edward finds himself half sitting, half leaning against the rock at Tozer’s back. From here, even in this fading light, he can see the ragged shake of his shoulders as he breathes and squares himself against the urge to reach out, to press his hand flat and firm around the curve of Tozer’s arm. The ache of his own resistance feels like lead weights hanging from his limbs. 

“I don’t mind dying,” Tozer spits suddenly. His movements still, but he does not turn his head as he sits upright with a jerk. He slams a fist against the ground and it takes all Edward has not to leap forward. There is a smear of blood left against the stone as Tozer raises his fist again, stares at it in the light. The blood winds trails through ridges that had not been there moments ago, pools in the dark webbing between Tozer’s fingers. “I don’t mind dying,” he repeats, “especially for what’s needed to be done. But I don’t want to be destroyed.”

Edward lets his rifle down to the floor, away from them both, as he kneels down beside Tozer. Tozer’s voice is small now, small and frightened in a way he has heard only once before. It makes his blood run cold.

“Look at me,” he says, voice low. It is not a command. Tozer would not have answered if it had been, he is sure of that. Finally, slowly, excruciatingly slowly, Tozer turns his head, focuses his attention on Edward’s face. His eyes, black, black and flat and deep, are all but unreadable, but Edward knows too well what their shine means. He cannot bear the ache any longer, reaches out one hand to grasp at Tozer’s shoulder. “Tell me what you’ve seen,” he says.

Tozer nods, a small movement that would have been lost but for the brush of his beard against Edward’s wrist. He brings up a hand to wrap tightly, too tightly around Edward’s own, but Edward does not flinch away from the pressure, nor the scratch of scales against his skin. 

“Do you believe a man has a soul, Ned?” he asks. Edward frowns, but the shake in Tozer’s fingers stops any question he might have wanted to ask in return. 

“I do,” he says. Tozer sighs; his foot twitching against cold stone.

“Me too,” he says. “I always did. We always knew.”

“We?”

Tozer raises an eyebrow, fixes him with his black-eyed stare, and Edward flushes slightly. 

“My kind, we don’t have them you see,” Tozer tells him. His thumbnail is scraping light circles under the inside of Edward’s cuff. “None of us do. Not unless we-” he stops, catches his lip between his teeth. “It doesn’t matter. It never has mattered.”

“I don’t follow.”

Tozer is quiet for another long moment. Edward can smell a scent of brine and thunder gathering in the space between their breaths. He lets his weight rest on his knees and tries to shape it into something calm. The eye, at least, if nothing else. Somehow he feels that it might be all they have left. He hopes that it is not.

“Except I’ve seen one now. I saw Mr Collins’ soul. When that creature murdered him.” His thumb stills against the vein of Edward’s wrist, but surely he must feel how fast Edward’s pulse is beating. He wants to understand what Tozer is saying, but his head hurts and his heart hurts and he isn’t-

“It fed on it, Edward.” Thick tears are beginning to spill from Tozer’s eyes. “It breathed that man in, I swear it.” He takes a long, juddering breath, and his lips quirk, almost painfully, into the echo of what might have once been called a smile. “I won’t let that happen to me.”

“I thought you said you don’t have a soul?”

Tozer shakes his head. “I didn’t,” he replies. He turns his head, and Edward watches, as if from afar, as those chapped lips press against the bloodied join of their hands. 

“You’re worried for mine?” Edward says, dumbly, and knows that he’s missed something. Tozer does smile then, smiles against his skin, smiles even as his lips crack dry and red and painful. Edward wants nothing so desperately as to capture it close, and so he does; he kisses Tozer with forgiveness, and with fear, and with loneliness, and with love, and hopes to anything that might hear him in the bleak eddies of this nightmare that Tozer can feel it too.

He thinks, he knows, when Tozer kisses him back, that he can.

“Yours and all, love,” Tozer says in a whisper. “Take me back to the Captain.”


End file.
